Plot or Premise

Sara Flores is living off the grid after a divorce, and gets to know an Indigenous neighbour who teaches her about wilderness and remote living. He seems like a pretty good friend until he performs a ritual one night as he’s dying and turns her into a werewolf without any warning or information.

What I Liked

The collection of eight shortstories gives the backstory of how Sara actually became a werewolf (no, she wasn’t bitten) and started figuring out how to use her newfound “gift” to help others.

I really liked “The Too-Smart Kid” who tried to get a job with some people who worked at a factory, only to accidentally trip over a drug operation. The “Werewolf at the Zoo” added some decent mythology to the story, with her communicating with a wolf. Similarly, “Werewolf Seeks Lupiti Wisdom” showed some of the backstory for the original werewolf and his links to his tribe.

The short novella, “Curiosity Kills”, was relatively fully fleshed out and had all the elements for a more fulsome story (her being “hired”, her getting involved, and her solving the case aggressively).

What I Didn’t Like

I felt the first story, “What Are Friends For”, was good but way too short. I would have liked to know more about her and Joe before the “hey-now-you’re-a-werewolf” moment, without those actual words telling her anything. But “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing” (running in the woods) and Choices (psycho friend of a friend) are not even really stories, just short vignettes with some extra exposition. Finally, there is a pretty good basis for a longer story in “Why I Need To Stay Away from Texas”, but it ends really abruptly and very oddly, where she suddenly has almost ninja / special forces abilities, but continues to talk about her not having any actual training. It didn’t quite work for me.

The Bottom Line

A decent premise and a good origin story